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On The Cover: Doll House

By: Michael Kampen (Dec/Jan 2009)
This doll house is the ultimate play area for any little girl. The sheer size of the house instills a sense of awe and imagination. Michael makes this challenging project seem simple with his detailed instructions; twelve full colour photos; four detailed illustrations showing all of the parts and joinery; and complete materials list. If you are looking for a project to amaze a child, and put you in the history books as the builder who made a childs dream come true, this is the project for you.

Wood Chuckle: A Woodworker´s Christmas

By: Don Wilkinson
The Christmas season is often the busiest time of year for any company and a woodworking shop is no exception. After establishing his shop in Whitehorse, Don quickly learned to set aside most of December to do those little jobs that simply had to be completed for Christmas. There was always at least one, and often several people who would frantically rush into the shop on Christmas Eve and anxiously beg him to build them something – anything for their wife, girlfriend or significant other. And in one particular case, all three. It was no wonder he didn’t have time to shop or do any woodworking himself. Read all about Don and his Christmas experience.

Shop Jig: Miter Sled

By: The Editors
With this sled you can quickly and easily make perfectly fitting miter joints. One of the most common joints a woodworker might cut when building a project is a miter joint, such as when two pieces of trim meet at a corner or when making a picture or mirror frame. Cutting the two pieces so they meet perfectly is a simple matter of using a compound miter saw. However, using a compound saw requires you to set up the saw twice, once for each piece. If you are not exactly dead on with the angle setting, the two pieces will not meet at 90º. This jig will help you make perfect miter joints.

Wood Finishing: Solvents

By: Carl Duguay
Solvents are useful products that can make the finishing process easier. But, they need to be treated with caution and common sense. In most shops you’ll likely find at least a few of the following solvents – mineral spirits, paint thinner, paint and varnish remover, turpentine, lacquer thinner, varsol, naphtha (camping stove fuel or white gas), methyl hydrate, acetone, or isoproponol. However, Carl often sees woodworkers using these solvents without employing any form of personal protection. While he don’t think that we need to get paranoid about the use of solvents in the shop, he does think that we need to remind ourselves that these products can be highly toxic. Most of them are also flammable, and environmental pollutants when not properly disposed of. In this article Carl makes sure that you know what you need to know to use common solvents in a safe and responsible way.

Shop Essentials: Combination Saw Blades

By: The Editors
When it comes to a general purpose, workhorse saw blade, you can’t go wrong with a combination blade. To achieve the best cuts possible on your table saw, you need the best blade you can afford to buy. We´ve always recommended that woodworkers have, at a minimum, three types of blades: a rip blade for ripping lumber along the grain, a finish crosscut saw for making precise, splinter free crosscuts, and a dual purpose combination blade, for everyday sawing. By far, the most widely used of the three is the combination blade. Fortunately, there are a number of very good blades to choose from. This article will help make the choice easier. Blades discussed in this article include: Bosch; Forrest; FSTool; Infinity; and Freud.

Product News: Veritas Skew Rabbet Plane, Carvewright, Sawstop Contractor Saw

By: The Editors
Veritas Skew Rabbet Plane If you make furniture or cabinetry, you likely cut a lot of rabbets. When you have a handful of them to process, it makes sense to mill them on the router table or table saw. More often than not you’ll still need to fine tune the rabbet for a perfect fit. Rather than heading back to the router table, it’s just as quick, and much more enjoyable, to use a rabbet plane. Carvewright If you’ve ever thought that CNC (computer numerical control) routing is strictly for large commercial workshops, think again. The Carvewright is a compact (15" x 18" x 26") three dimensional carving machine that looks much like a portable planer. In place of a cutterhead it has a router, and a built-in computer interface. Stock is fed through the Carvewright via a traction drive belt, the same as found on a drum sander. SawStop Contractor Saw A table saw is one of the most important tools in any woodworker´s shop. Picking the right one means that you’ll enjoy using it for many years. For many hobbyist woodworkers and professionals who work in small shops, a contractor style saw is a sensible choice. It can be easily moved around the shop (or even taken to a job site), it takes up less room than a cabinet saw, and it’s more economically priced.

Router Skills: Rabbets, Dados and Grooves

By: Michael Kampen
Rabbets, dados and grooves are basic forms of joinery found in most woodworking projects. Learning to do them correctly will give your woodworking skills a solid foundation. Whether it is a rabbet to hold a cabinet back, a dado used to house shelves in a bookcase or a groove for a drawer bottom, you can mill these joints quickly and accurately with a router. These joints are all variations on the same theme. Essentially they are butt joints - you are joining end grain to face grain. Gluing end grain to face grain will not produce a very strong joint, so for additional strength and support it is best to reinforce this type of joint by housing it in a slot. In preparing these joints you are removing a square or rectangular cross section from the face of one board to house the edge or side or end of another board. This article is sure to improve your router joinery skills.

Skill Builder: Curved Panel Veneering

By: Marty Schlosser
Tired of the look of flat doors on your cabinetry and furniture? Maybe it’s time to incorporate curved panels into yourwoodworking. It’s not that hard, and it adds a whole new dimension to your woodworking. Marty’s interest in curved panel veneering began several years ago when he decided to add curved panel doors to an entertainment cabinet that he was designing. Originally he decided to make coopered doors, which he felt would add an exciting design element to the cabinet. However, he quickly realized that they would require a significant investment in both time and materials. After some research he decided to try making the curved panels with a vacuum veneering system. A vacuuming system is quite affordable for the small shop, is easy to store in a small space when not in use, and more importantly, enabled him to quickly and efficiently make curved panels. In this article Marty describe the equipment required and walks you through the process he follows in making curved panels. Marty also includes five full colour photos; two detailed illustrations showing the anatomy of a mold and how to stack veneer.

Shop Tools: Miter Saws

By: The Editors
Miter saws have come a long way from their ‘chop saw’ days; the improvements over the early models are significant. Early versions of this tool were known as chop saws because that is what they excelled at: crosscuts and miter cuts on the jobsite. They were not particularly accurate when switching between settings and were limited to rather small stock. Over the years manufacturers have been improving these saws by designing more reliable tilt mechanisms, better fences and increasing the crosscutting capacity significantly. There are about two dozen miter saw models from ten different manufacturers available across Canada, and each offers slightly different variations on these features. The current generation of these saws have improved dramatically and excel at three different kinds of cuts: miter, bevel and compound. The miter saws looked at in this article included: Black & Decker; Ridgid; Skil; DeWalt; Ryobi; Bosch; Hitachi; Craftsman; Festool; and King. Areas covered include:Mobilty; Capacity; Scales; Table Support; Blades; Dust Collection; and Picking the Right Saw.

Furniture Project: Display Stand

By: Carl Duguay
Build this elegant stand to display your favourite plant or sculpture. Small tables don’t require a lot of wood, they don’t take much time to build, and they provide a nice canvas for exploring design options. Carl gives you a full colour photo of the display stand; step-by-step instructions; detailed material list; and an illustration showing all of the parts and joinery.

Skill Builder: Bent Lamination

By: Karel Aelterman
Bent laminating is an easily acquired skill that will open up new avenues for expressing your woodworking creativity. If you are one of those woodworkers who has thought about how nice it would be to use bent lamination in a project, but are intimidated by the process, think again. The process is surprisingly simple, and once you’ve made your first bent lamination, you’ll want to include curves in all your future projects. Karel covers: Layers, Laminates and Laminations; Cutting Laminates on the Bandsaw; The Bending Form; Two-Part Bending Forms; One-Part Bending Forms; Clamping With a Vacuum Press; Dealing With Spring-back; and Bending Plywood.

Gift Shop: Workshop Wishlist

By: The Editors
If you are looking for ideas for the woodworkers on your gift list, here are some great suggestions from our editors. Give any of these shop tools or accessories and you are sure to get onto your woodworker´s ´nice´ list. This list can also be a great source for gift ideas for your woodworker’s birthday, father’s day, etc..

Home Improvement: Wall Beds

By: Carl Duguay
If you need a room in your home to serve double duty, there is no better way to manage space than with a wall bed. Maybe the kids have flown the coop and you want to use the bedroom as an arts room, but don’t want to lose the bed. Or perhaps you’ve started a home-based business, and really need to turn the guest room into an office – but still need to accommodate Aunt Edna’s bi-annual visits. What’s the creative home handyperson to do? Wall beds (also referred to as Murphy beds, after the inventor of the first modern wall bed) provide a convenient, affordable way to extend the usable floor space of any room. In this project article, Carl gives instructions on how to go about building a wall bed for your needs. He does not give exact measurements, but rather details the process so that you can suit your bed to your needs. He also provides two full colour photos of a wall bed (in its open and closed position), and a detailed illustration showing the structure and offering hardware options.

Turning Project: Wedding Goblet

By: Allan Cusworth
This goblet with its two captive rings on the stem, symbolizes everlasting love between a bride and groom, and signifies a strong bond for the couple’s future. Wedding goblets follow a tradition deep rooted in medieval history, dating back centuries. Today, they still remain popular for weddings, but are also used to celebrate anniversaries and other special occasions. They are very often engraved with commemorative names, dates, and other special event details. Used as ceremonial vessels, they become valued mementos of the occasion. In this project article, Allan leads you through the process with detailed instructions and eighteen full colour photos. If you enjoy turning and like to make your own gifts, this project is ideal.

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